Andy that is, not Eddie. the bloke has been absolutely useless at his job in trying to convince decent players to sign for Newcastle. Newcastle Executive assistant of the director my arse!
It's time to drastically improve the recruitment strategy and to expand the scouting network. If that means Andy Howe and his uncle get the hump then they'll have to deal with it... If they can work a new way great.
I'm as disappointed as the next person, but, what if he's got the impossible job? He's chatting to Sesko's agent, offers 200k a week, agents turns around and says "well Man Utd are offering 250k, can you match or better that?" And he's obviously got a list of targets that are unfortunately very desirable to richer clubs, Delap, Pedro, Ekitike, Mbeumo, Trafford, were all going to be hard to get because we still can't pay the big bucks and players are ultimately money orientated greedy ****s.
It's those at the top who are to blame for not recruiting in key positions leaving existing staff to "step up" into a role they have no experience in. Eales should have been replaced 12 months ago. They should really have lined up Mitchell's replacement too and a more comprehensive team for scouting and transfers. For us it just looks like a team of 4 dealing with everything. Eddie looks knackered and it wouldn't surprise me if he was considering his future here if things don't improve
This is much closer to the mark than 80% of the stuff posted. If Sesko is being offered eg £200,000 pw by Man U and AH is authorised to go up to £175,000 max how can you blame him for not persuading Sesko to come here? I accept Roly's point about better scouting of a younger age but that is going to take time before you see the benefits. For this window, we are looking more at the now as in players who can now immediately go into the first team and improve it. PSR is going to restrict what we can do what we can offer. And there seems to be an absolute failing on this Board to that aspect by many who just want to whine and complain but, at the same time, ignore the facts of life.
My frustrations are that we know we can’t dine at the top table. So why even bother right now. What you posted is exactly what is happening. We can’t match the big 6 in wages. So the scouting needs to be better. And then the buying process needs to be slicker. And to do these two things we need better people in charge. A certain departed ex employee stated the fact that our recruitment system is not fit for purpose. This window currently proves he was correct.
The new CEO should’ve been in place after the cup final. The DoF within a week of Mitchell departing. Howe should be focused on what he does best, Andy Howe should be fired and replaced with competent scouts.
But do we decide not to go for certain players because one of the Greedy Six might go for them? Hardly. We still approach them and ‘sell’ the Club. We might be unsuccessful most of the time but you then do know that the players who join are there for the project and not just the money. Agreed, the scouting needs to improve but that is going to take time. The process needs to be slicker but we don’t know where the issue is. Mitchell’s comments I disregard completely. It comes across as self serving. Why make the comments public? Someone who makes those type of comments publicly is not someone I would want as part of my team. All the window currently proves is that we are still in need of a RCB, a better goalkeeper, and a forward to replace Wilson also that we aren’t yet an ‘elite’ club. Anything else is guesswork, opinion and/or speculation. Proof is based on fact and not guesswork, opinion and/or speculation.
You look at Brighton and how they work, very little mention of them in the gossip column and all of a sudden there's a player holding a blue & white scarf. Granted they're signing younger talent, but you have to admire how they operate.
